


la storia

by pendules



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2011-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-19 00:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/194878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:</i> Ecclesiastes 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	la storia

There's a verse of scripture he's become quite familiar with over the past year.

(It was the first he'd remembered when the news went public; he'd sat with his head in the black, leather-bound book on his bedroom floor, wondering if it was punishment, and if so, from whom.

The paper is still crinkled where the tears had fallen.)

He's committed it to memory, but sometimes he just likes to see the neat arrangement, the columns, and distinct lettering of the pages in front of him. (He's always liked the smell of books too: the old book smell, musty, or the new book smell, not so much clean as inviting, warm, and the different textures of paper.)

 _Ecclesiastes 3._

And it's a bit strange that now, after all this time, the Bible would remind him of Sheva. But in everything, there's God. (In everything, there's _Sheva._ ) That hasn't changed. It's comforting too, that these things, usually contradictory things, can reside side by side. (And they always have, in his mind, in his heart.)

And this is, essentially, what the exact passage speaks of -

 

 _1\. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:_

 _2\. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;_

Kakà's always liked history. Like maybe family history. He'd sit on the carpet, his eyes wide and bright, cheeks positively glowing, as he listened to his father tell stories about his childhood, or his ancestors' lives, what _they_ had told _him_ before now being imparted to his son. He was never particularly scholarly, just inquisitive.

Then there was the Bible itself; a timeless account, a story in itself (an epic one that transcended generations, and still linked together; each verse, chapter, book like puzzle pieces), as historically accurate as one could have gotten. He was a naϊve child, maybe even more so than others. After all, a compulsive need to know everything does not always equate to an objective perception of said information.

But sometime after, he is in a new country, twenty-one years old, alone in a library.

He sinks to the carpet, like a ten-year-old again, closes his eyes (remembers there was a time he could recognize books by the scent of their pages; it's like the way the strong scent of coffee, or the pungency of liquor appeals to some, but he's never had time for either; he doesn't understand the machinations of chemically altering one's body state), but this is where it changes.

He thinks though: _if you believe now, if you did before, you always will._

The history now is: he met Andriy Mykolayovych Shevchenko in the summer of 2003, he fell in love, and then Sheva left one morning in May, three years later, seven years after he'd arrived.

 

 _3\. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;_

Sheva doesn't remember as readily (and he doesn't want to) his childhood. He tells Kakà that he doesn't like history, and that it should be put and kept in its place, the past. And he's all about moving on, moving forward, moving, moving, moving...

And Kakà doesn't ask: _was_ I _your real tragedy? Was I the constant reminder of everything you'd lost when you were nine?_

(There is, too, something almost mocking about the city, every street corner, and building front that reaches out to him. He realises that it's all the same, it hasn't changed, and this, this is not comfort, far from it, as if it all refuses to acknowledge the loss, the emptiness.

It hurts him to look upon it, and know that no longer will a road here or there lead him sooner or later to _his_ doorstep, no longer does one of those lights from his window represent another soul, possibly sitting on his balcony, not able to sleep either. (The absence is even more evident to him in the familiarity.)

There's a conversation he's not recalling in the back of his mind:

"It's two in the morning, Sheva."

"You're up too."

"No, I wasn't."

"Liar."

"What's wrong?"

"I miss you?"

"Sheva..."

"Ricky, I haven't slept since _that night_.")

 

 _4\. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;_

They'd gone out, the team, to celebrate a win. Kakà, nervous, Sheva, his eyes knowing, a hint of a smile never lost from his face. He remembers thinking, he looks radiant, and he'd only taken two sips of beer, letting them flow over his tongue before swallowing. (He's never had the taste for alcohol, and it has nothing, really, to do with religion.)

Sheva kisses him against his car, and he remembers it being cold, and the windows being fogged up. His shirt had gotten untucked somewhere along the line, and now Sheva's fingertips were pressed against his skin, strangely warm and awkward at the same time (like his eyes now; the smile was gone).

All he says is, _Goodnight_ , before Kakà gets in the car, and drives home.

He calls a few hours later, and he isn't there. (He never finds out where Sheva had gone afterwards.)

 

 _5\. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;_

Hotel rooms are far too convenient, and he bites his tongue so he wouldn't scream when he comes. The taste of blood in his mouth, and vision blurry, he presses his lips to Sheva's collarbone. He can't look at himself in the bathroom mirror, and he feels like crying or throwing up for a minute. But it isn't about letting go; it's about acceptance.

And Sheva wraps an arm around his waist, chest against his back, says

 _It isn't about this—_

 

 _6\. A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;_

It's about when they lose. It's about Milan, the Rossoneri, and haunted looks, crying faces, and the line of Kakà's neck, his back when he sits on the grass, knees pulled up to his chest, hair in disarray, face turned away.

He says, after, "I'm sorry. It shouldn't have ended this way."

"This isn't the end."

 _Yes. Yes, it is._

 

Two days less of two years later, left alone with a victory (and this is alien to him), he realises what he, and everything he'd said, meant.

The past is the past; it must be kept there.

And he's never (really) alone; he hasn't been since he was eighteen years old, or maybe even before that.

 

 _7\. A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;_

Sheva is alone a night in May, when he calls.

"Are you happy?"

"I am, I'm happy for you."

"I didn't mean— Never mind."

"It wasn't the end, Ricky. You were right. But it was the end for me."

"Sheva..."

"We want different things now. Our fates are no longer linked."

"Sheva, don't."

"But I still love you."

"... I love you too."

 

 _8\. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace._

Another time, another conversation:

April 26, 2006. Twenty years to the day since Chernobyl.

"I think that God does not cause the actions of humans; he simply gives us a choice, and the tools to make that choice, the knowledge of what is right and wrong. But it's still up to us. He isn't a dictator."

"I thought he was, how do you say, omnipotent?"

"The true measure of power is how you use what you have been given. He's a teacher, no more, no less."

"And—"

"Sheva, people have had this exact discussion for centuries. If you don't believe now, you won't ever. But I believe in him, and I trust his word, that everyone has a choice."

"What's the choice in this?"

"This... we choose to do what we truly think we want."

"So what do you _really_ want?"

"I want peace, Sheva."

( _I want you to be at peace._ )

Sheva, he thinks: _I did once, but I lost it. And it doesn't work both ways; it doesn't, no matter what you think (you're still ten years old somewhere inside there; I feel it every time I touch you). It can't be regained. So you, you need to hold onto it. (You need to let go of me.)_

 

One morning in September, he writes all eight verses on a sheet of paper carefully (it smells as clean as it looks), and a single line under them:

> _Maybe this will link us together._

 

And he reflects: _Darkness is the absence of light; light is the absence of darkness._

 _Hate is the absence of love; love is the absence of hate._

 _War is the absence of peace; peace is the absence of war._

 _Me, I am the absence of you._


End file.
